Category: Analog Film

From Beyond the Grave …

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I wonder how many rolls of undeveloped Kodachrome are still out there? Of course they cannot be conventionally developed, but they can still be processed as black and white, since Kodachrome is basically black and white film to which dyes are added in development. (This process of adding dyes in development is what made the process so complicated). I had a couple of exposed rolls that I just never got around to sending to Dwaynes in Kansas City for processing, so after reading about how some other people had done it, I gave it a shot last night.

I used a developer called Rodinal, (dating from 1893!) at a dilution of 100+1, and was thrilled to get usable results, such as the image below. I still have a couple of unexposed rolls of Kodachrome that I can now use; I just won’t get “nice bright colours.”

Kodachrome Processed As B & W

Photographic Resolutions

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It is often customary for photographers at the beginning of a calendar year to make photographic resolutions (no pun intended, Rob) for the new year, so here are mine; some are very specific, some are general:

  1. Do at least one photo session with a hired model.
  2. Create at least one image that is shocking (in a non-gratuitous manner).
  3. Finish my Portrait of the Artist series by March 31st, 2011.
  4. Continue my self-portrait series, but get completely out of my comfort zone.
  5. Raise the suspicion of at least one authority figure while taking pictures in public.

The picture below is one I made yesterday, and I relate it to the subject of today’s post as follows: At one point, this ruin of rusted metal was a pail, quite capable of being filled with water. Now however years of neglect have allowed entropy to take over, in an inevitable course of decay. Had this pail received attention and care, it would not have gotten to this state. I believe the same can be said for any artistic endeavour; without constant attention and effort, artistry will decay.

D0n’t let 2011 be the year it happens to you.

Untitled

GoodBye Kodachrome

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The deadline came and went yesterday: the cut-off for Dwayne’s Photo-lab accepting Kodachrome for processing. Apparently there was a huge surge of film being sent in to beat the deadline, but no more will be accepted now.

For seventy-five years Kodachrome has been used to illustrate the storyboard of much of humanity; what a priceless legacy!

The image below is one I captured on the Kodachrome Photowalk in October of this year. Nothing special about it, but as one of countless millions of Kodachrome images created in seventy-five years, it shares in that collective legacy.

Thank you Kodachrome. In a century where so much of the technology developed was for the express purpose of killing each other more efficiently and in larger numbers, your technology was made for creativity, truth and beauty.

And as a tool of creation, you are more powerful than any tool of destruction.

 

johnm012

Portrait of the Artist: Daniele Rossi

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Normally TimeWarp Tuesday is for old photographs, but today a different angle on that theme: a new photo involving a very old process. First, the subject of the portrait is my good friend Daniele Rossi, artist, web designer and podcaster. He is a mix of old and new: on one hand, as an artist he applies pigments to a flat surface, a form of artistic expression almost as old as humanity itself. On the other hand, as a podcaster, web designer and social media denizen, he is about as current as you can get on the latest technology.

Portrait of the Artist: Daniele Rossi

My image is also a mix of old and new. The original image was created with a 30 year old Nikon FM SLR, using the classic Kodak Tri-X film, developed at home. New technology then got into the picture, as I scanned the negative using a film scanner. Then using Photoshop and an ink-jet printer I created a full-size paper negative. Then, back to traditional techniques: I applied baby oil to the paper negative to make it more transparent, and contact printed the negative using the Cyanotype process. This process dates back almost to the dawn of photography, as it was invented in 1842. Exposure to the sun (or other suitable UV source) hardens the emulsion. In the case of this image, it was exposed to the sun for about an hour. The print was then “developed” by rinsing in cold water, then soaked in a weak Hydrogen Peroxide solution to bring out the brilliance in the blue tones of the print.

I have fallen in love with this process!!

 

Time-Warp Tuesday: Ghost of Christmas Past

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Christmas memories, and how times have changed, so for Time-Warp Tuesday this week I have a Kodachrome slide; I made this image, a close-up of an ornament on the family Christmas tree sometime between 1980-82.

Tree Ornament, 1982?

This slide looks pretty much like it did when I first took the image; the colours and sharpness have remained true. So much else about Christmas has changed though: relatives have passed on, and at the same time a new generation has arisen to be part of my Christmas memories.

My late mother was very proud of her Christmas tree ornaments, and her tree decorating. If such a thing as Yuletide Feng Shui existed, she was the master. Now the collection is spread out amongst various family members, so we will never see a single tree like that again. All we have are images like this one, capturing the memory of Christmas treasures.

 

Portrait of the Artist: Randell Rosenfield

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Another in my Portrait of the Artist series today:  Randell Rosenfield is a founding member of the Toronto-based early music enable Sine Nomine. My wife is a also a member of this group, and in addition to recording their Christmas concert last Saturday night, I was also able to take pictures of Sine Nomine as they warmed up and got in final rehearsal for the concert. In this image Randell is playing a vielle, a forerunner of the violin.

The Vielle

 

From a technical point of view, it was a challenging shoot. I was using a Nikon FM film camera with a 50mm f1.4 lens. I was shooting sans flash, so even using Kodak Tri-X film pushed to E.I. 1600, I had to shoot at 1/30 of a second, wide open. Because of the slow shutter speed, I had to time my shoots to coincide with the short pause at the end of each upbow or down bow, in an attempt to avoid blur. I am quite happy with the results; there is a luminosity in black and white film that is just not there in digital black and white.

And of course, when taking images of a group that performs medieval music, using a digital camera would have felt wrong. 🙂

 

Available Light

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I am trying out Ilford Delta 3200 Professional film, one of the fastest black and white films you can get. When I was researching online on what developer to use, I was amazed at the variety of opinions, and just how tricky it is to get this film “dialled in” in terms of exposure and processing. My first try was using D-76 developer at a 1:1 dilution, which was not completely successful in terms of graininess. When shooting available light (or available darkness!) subjects though this is the kind of film stock I will need to master, so I have one more roll, and I will try another developer next time. The fun is in the discovery though!

Towards the Light

A Twist On Time-Warp Tuesday

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I am going to put another twist on Time-Warp Tuesday this week. The image below is not an old image; in fact it dates from just this past Sunday, when I was at the Beaches in Toronto. What qualifies it for Time-Warp Tuesday is that it represents a mix of old and new technology. First the old: the camera I used, my Mamiya M645J medium format, dates from the late 1970’s. The film format it uses, 120, dates from the first decade of the 20th century. Finally, the developer chemical I used to process the film, D-76, dates from the mid 1920’s.

The new is represented first by a couple of great iPhone Apps that had a part in the making of this image. First, since the camera is a completely manual model with no built in light meter, I needed something to calculate the exposure. Instead of bringing along a traditional light meter, I used a great (and free!) iPhone app called Pocket Light Meter, which takes advantage of the light meter built into the iPhone’s camera, and it did a pretty good job, better in fact than my “real” light meter as a matter of fact. The second app I used was in the dark room, and is called Massive Dev Chart; it combines an encyclopaedia of development times for various film and chemical combinations, with a specialized timer that makes timing the various steps of the development process a snap.

Toronto Beaches 21/11/10
I think one of the greatest things about photography is the ability to mix the old with the new; you can go completely digital start to finish, or at the other end, use completely “obsolete” processes, like wet plate collodion. With the hybrid workflow, you can find your spot anywhere in this technology spectrum, using whatever fulfills your vision. These are exciting times.

In the Mood For Medium Format

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I’m heading out this morning to the Beaches in Toronto with my Mamiya 645 medium format film camera, so to get in the mood here’s an image I shot with my Mamiya a few weeks back on a photo-walk with a bunch of great folks in Hamilton, Ontario. I had no idea there were so many beautiful and delicate waterfalls in the Hamilton area.

Waterfall in Hamilton, Ontario